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Guy Clark

There’s not much I can say about Guy Clark that somebody hasn’t said already. I didn’t grow up listening to his songs necessarily, but once I started hearing them it was easy to want more.

The legendary Texas songwriter died yesterday at 74.

This profilewill tell you what you need to know about Clark. It came across my Twitter feed one morning in early January 2014. I was preparing to board a plane for Hawaii and storing up reading material for the journey. Read that one twice. A perfectly constructed story about a fascinating subject. Any instructor who tries to teach folks how to write profiles would be wise to use this one as example number one.

Afterward, I downloaded two or three recent Clark albums and passed those hours over the Pacific enjoying his weathered voice, noticing how he always picked the precise word to help tell those stories, how he made you feel as if you were right there among those characters. The credit card bill got paid, eventually.

Whether it’s Emmylou Harris or Steve Earle or dozens of musicians in between, I’ve heard them all praise Clark as generous with his time. He showed artists how to turn a phrase and make their songs better. He was interested in the songs they were writing at that moment. It was always about the craft – and rarely easy. Helping others. If that’s a piece of your legacy, you’ve done alright.

Still, here’s my favorite Guy Clark song. Heard it 15 years ago or so, introduced to Guy’s songs through his old late-night buddy, Townes Van Zandt. Captures the desire of a man eager to get the hell out of town and make a new start. If you’ve ever been in that spot, you know what he means. Besides, it’s not a simple trick, singing about vanilla wafers and hanging on to your dignity. He pulled that off, too.